Looking for a good pension calculator

squirrelpie

FWIW, my first page looks like Firedreamer's rather than yours. And yes, I've taken benefits. I haven't looked in detail but there do seem to be some quirks.

vacheron

squirrelpie said:

FWIW, my first page looks like Firedreamer's rather than yours. And yes, I've taken benefits. I haven't looked in detail but there do seem to be some quirks.

Interesting.

The site asks @FIREDreamer (and possibly yourself):  "when you took your pension, did you take the 25% lump sum?", whereas mine says "do you want to take the 25% lump sum at retirement",

So the site clearly knows that pensions have been taken, even if the birthday entered meant that the user has not reached state pension age.

I can't see any option to change this retrospectively, meaning that it must be something that you declare when you first set up the account?

Moonwolf

Perhaps it is worth going in using private browsing and see if the behaviour is different. Perhaps setting up a second account* if necessary.

*Lots of ways to get multiple email addresses but I have one each with hotmail, google and yahoo and have them all set up as recovery for each other. If I change the password on one I get updates on at least one other. It adds a layer of security as well as being useful for above.

vacheron

Moonwolf said:

Perhaps it is worth going in using private browsing and see if the behaviour is different. Perhaps setting up a second account* if necessary.

*Lots of ways to get multiple email addresses but I have one each with hotmail, google and yahoo and have them all set up as recovery for each other. If I change the password on one I get updates on at least one other. It adds a layer of security as well as being useful for above.

I did something similar early in my Guiide days when I ran into an issue that I couldn't seem to resolve, but I think that was more down to not being familair with the interface at the time.

Fortunately I own my own top level domain so it was easy to set up 2 addresses at the time which I called  "guiide@mydomain.com and guiide2@mydomain.com, howver later I realised that it was an issue on my part so de-activated the second one.

Certainly worth someone trying to set up a second account from scratch again though if not just so we can pay close attention to the questions that are asked this time around.

squirrelpie

vacheron said:

So the site clearly knows that pensions have been taken, even if the birthday entered meant that the user has not reached state pension age.

Yes, the site explicitly asks that question. I assumed that was what provoked the question about 25%

ali_bear

Maybe try using a different browser. 

PenActuary

Hi

I see there a few questions about Guiide here. Its my site so please ask anything you want. Always happy to help. If you don't want to raise it here please just email us. Not sure if I am allowed to put the email here but its all over the site.

Couple of points raised that I have seen we assume you will get the full state pension, revalued to your state pension age, so if its £230 a week now if will be higher if your state pension age is a few years away. We know not everyone will get a full one so in the Dashboard area there is a state pension help section where we show you how to get an NI record and we can pro-rata the amount if you have less than 35 years.

We assume the lowest age you can access your DC pension pots is 55, yes the minimum retirement age is increasing to 57, but lots of people may still have protection so we allow 55 as the youngest age possible

Yes we ask if people have started accessing their pensions yet. This means accessing their DC pension pots. If they have we build them a plan from next month, come back later and its the next month again. We then ask "did you" rather than "will you" take 25% TFC. We need to know this so that we can tax the remaining pot correctly.

Any issues/questions you have at all just let me know.

Thanks

Kevin

Smudgeismydog

Many thanks Kevin,
I’m currently aged 51 with a Dependents pension already in payment, but can’t seem to enter this. The system assumes the earliest it can start is 55.

I was looking for a tab for ‘other’ income to enter it, but couldn’t find anything. 

Is this possible and I’ve just missed something?

thanks 

PenActuary

Smudgeismydog said:

Many thanks Kevin,
I’m currently aged 51 with a Dependents pension already in payment, but can’t seem to enter this. The system assumes the earliest it can start is 55.

I was looking for a tab for ‘other’ income to enter it, but couldn’t find anything. 

Is this possible and I’ve just missed something?

thanks 

Hi - are you talking about a DB spouses pension. Do you also have something flexible to put towards retirement, like a DC pension pot or some savings. The question I suppose is when you start to take these flexible parts will they give you everything you need by combining them with everything else you have. So how will you provide for yourself between now and when you start taking anything flexible, work, the DB spouses pension, both?

If its work and the DB spouses pension, then you don't actually need to touch anything flexible until you retire lets (say this is 57 as an example), so you can use that as a retirement date? Put in everything you have now, DC Pots, savings etc, plus and contributions you are making in these and they will get revalued to 57 and just estimate the DB spouses income payable from 57. As you get closer to 57 you can make the DB figure more accurate and also update any pensions and savings pots as these change.

Does that help? 

GenX0212

PenActuary said:

Hi

I see there a few questions about Guiide here. Its my site so please ask anything you want. Always happy to help. If you don't want to raise it here please just email us. Not sure if I am allowed to put the email here but its all over the site.

...

Any issues/questions you have at all just let me know.

Thanks

Kevin

When is the option for couples planning coming please? been touted for a while now.